I Did It. Only Some of You Can Really Understand This: You Are NEVER Too Old for a Comeback

You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

It’s been almost three years, step by painful step

Yesterday afternoon at about five, I hooked my pupper up to my waist (here’s a handy product for you that I LOVE) and stepped out onto my deck.

Mika, who had been sequestered inside, who knows damned good and well that Mommy is about to leave again, was itchy to move around, doggy jail is coming up.

Let’s GOGOGO Mom.

I took three steps out onto my aggregate driveway, looked up and around. The sky was overcast, the temperature in the high sixties.

Then I started jogging.

I live on a rather steep hill. From where I live to the bottom of that hill is about a quarter mile. Mika practiced her left heel position next to me.

It took me a few minutes to get my breathing and pace.

But I ran gently the whole way.

That was the first time I’ve jogged in three years.

If you’re a runner, and I’ve been a runner my entire life, and you’ve had surgery, an accident or been sidelined, you will understand.

Three years ago this November I had the first of (so far) three reconstructive surgeries on feet that had been crushed by draft horses weighing up to 2600 pounds. That was six years ago.

They had shattered the metatarsals. I have abnormally high arches, so the fix was complex. This was surgery #1:

In April of 2023 I got the right foot done. Since then it has been a horror show. The surgery apparently either damaged or disrupted nerves, so I’ve been living with neuropathy ever since.

The nerves never grew back as promised. Happens sometimes for reasons nobody understands.

I’ve done everything from cold laser to CBD to creams. I blew out the ligament on my right hand massaging my feet. Cold. Heat. Exercise, PT. Every single night for the last three years. Pain pills. Three pain clinics.

Nada.

Neuropathy happens from any one of a thousand different reasons, but is most often attributed to diabetes. Dealing with the VA, that’s the knee-jerk assumption, which adds another layer of complexity to treatment.

Meanwhile, being unable to walk normally, my balance compromised because I can’t quite feel my feet, unable to hike until very recently, and most assuredly not run, my body’s bones have thinned. I have extra weight I can do without. I missed being able to do more than walk swiftly.

My VO2 has suffered, which bothered me more than just about everything else.

This year in March my surgeon removed the metal in my left foot in a final attempt to give me relief from the tingling, angry, blowtorch feeling that I live with in my feet.

This is that surgery, a few days later. I’m a bleeder; we tried a new medication. Boy what a difference that made, and of course the surgery was far less complex:

Removing all the metal didn’t remove the pain. What it did do was loosen things up so that I could get a bit more movement in my left foot. More movement means greater balance. I’ll take it.

I work constantly on the BOSU ball, continue to do the PT, and massage the tops of my feet every night.

This past summer I decided to stop trying to stop the pain and accept that I will likely live with it the rest of my life. Let it become a hum in the background and get out and do all of life that I can anyway.

What we attend, grows. A lesson we see every day when we allow our full attention to be sucked into doom scrolling and catastrophizing.

When we focus on the pain, the pain looms larger in the same way.

My foot pain stepped into the shadows. Still there. Worse at night. Fuggit. Live anyway.

The body wants to move, it needs exercise. It likes running, walking, hiking. I started hiking with a weighted vest this summer.

Last night I jogged, gently, a quarter mile, downhill, to the stop sign. My VO2 capacity is just fine. I wanted to do more.

You learn not to push it. Mika and I walked the rest of the three miles at a good fast pace. Going up that hill makes you huff. I used to run up that hill. First time in 36 months, that is once again a possibility.

I quietly celebrated. Quarter mile, down hill. Of course it was easy, if you don’t know the history. This was a very big deal.

Been a long time since I pounded the pavement for three to eight miles regularly. If you run for the joy of it, if it’s part of who you are, it gets personal when life steals your feet.

I can’t possibly imagine what I can do next. What I do know, at this age and after this very difficult journey, is that I’ll likely have the metal removed from my right foot.

Six more weeks in a boot, swift recovery. I heal fast due to good diet, regular exercise and sheer determination.

You can’t begin to imagine how grateful I am for that quarter-mile, downhill jog. My feet didn’t scream, I didn’t tip over or trip.

Since 2018, I’ve had three shoulder surgeries, kidney stone surgery, removed my ovaries, four hand surgeries, a broken hip (because of my feet), and three foot surgeries. I’ve lost bones and ligaments, gained metal, and the outcomes aren’t always ideal.

Some of you can directly relate. It’s been a minute but I did not give up. Wanted to sometimes. But didn’t.

Believe in yourself. Believe in your body.

I’ve spent an appalling amount of time in pain, then in PT, and hoping for the best. Sometimes I got results, often I didn’t.

So many of my readers and subscribers are dealing with something big in their buckets. Some of you never exercised, some of you want to get back on your feet or to the dance studio or the gym.

I believe that comebacks are available to all of us at any age. I may never run eight miles a day again, but the way I see it, I am so damned grateful for a quarter-mile downhill jog I could cry.

Wherever you are, whatever you are dealing with, please do not give up on yourself. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes it takes years. You are worth the work.

Let’s play.

Photo by Emma Simpson on Unsplash

Heartfelt thanks to those readers who have been with me all this time, who have encouraged and uplifted me during this journey, and who have been kind enough to remind me that it’s worth pushing on. Yes it is. Please consider: